Katandra West calls for dependable mobile service answered

20 Jul 2018

After a long, long time spent on hold, Katandra West’s calls for a dependable mobile service finally appear to be getting answered.

Reliable mobile connectivity is set to be in place for the town and surrounds by late next year, after Katandra West was included in the latest round of state funding to build phone towers and remove areas of poor coverage.

The town was yesterday revealed as being successful in the Victorian Government’s Mobile Black Spot Project, the latest round of which saw $11million allocated to build towers in 28 communities struggling for connectivity.

Calls for better mobile coverage answered

20 Jul 2018

MOBILES are ringing and downloading for the first time in the Coast's hinterland with state of the art mobile technology now available.

Telstra area general manager May Boisen joined Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield and Federal Member for Fairfax Ted O'Brien to launch a new mobile base station that addresses a notorious black spot in Dulong.

It is among more than 650 sites being delivered by Telstra across the nation under the program.

Finder to the Node: As fixed wireless fails, Aussies look to crowdfunded broadband

20 Jul 2018

Read about DIY approaches to NBN connection woes while NBN Co blames early expectations for fixed-wireless problems in our round-up of this week's NBN news.
Regional NSW town to crowdfund their own broadband network

Residents at Kangaroo Valley, a small town located 150 kilometres south-west of Sydney, have banded together to crowdfund their own broadband network after being let down by NBN's fixed wireless and satellite services.

Project lead, John Sinclair, told the ABC that he plans on leasing a fibre-optic line from Nowra to Sydney in addition to deploying up to ten base stations to distribute the connection throughout the town. Mr Sinclair says that the local community has already pitched in $90,000 of the requested $120,000 with residents forking over $1,000 each to get the project off the ground.

Coalition sounds gong for long-awaited new mobile coverage in Dulong

18 Jul 2018

Residents in and around Dulong, Queensland, are now duly celebrating long awaited "new and improved mobile coverage", and it's all "thanks to the Coalition Government’s $220 million Mobile Black Spot Program".

Federal Minister for Communications, Mitch Fifield joined the Federal Member for Fairfax, Ted O’Brien MP, for the launch of the upgraded base station in Dulong, with O'Brien stating three mobile base stations were being deployed in the electorate of Fairfax.

O'Brien added: “The Dulong base station is now switched on which means new and improved coverage for the region.

"Better connectivity will increase opportunities for local businesses to expand their customer base and a more reliable service means families can stay in touch more easily".

Mid July Update

18 Jul 2018

Optus this fortnight is rolling out 4G2100 at an astonishing pace with 267 sites upgraded. Optus is taking the previously used 3G2100 spectrum and reassigning it to 4G, QLD and WA were the main focus with 116 and 88 respectively, VIC and NSW have received these upgrades recently but more have been proposed. Optus also managed 15 new sites with QLD and NSW receiving the bulk. Optus also announced its first batch of 5G3500 sites, and currently has 26 sites around Melbourne and Sydney.

Vodafone, like Optus is also reassigning spectrum but focusing on the 900mhz band going from 2G to 4G with their recent 2G switch off. Vodafone managed 103 site upgrades with 84 in VIC, Vodafone also managed 7 new sites all in metro areas.

Telstra managed 19 new sites with many in rural areas, QLD and NSW receiving the bulk with 7 and 6 respectively. Telstra is currently finalizing the first round of the blackspot program so expect many more sites getting activated over the remainder of the year. Telstra also managed to upgrade a further 65 sites with the bulk in NSW, Telstra’s focus remains 4G700 and 4G2600. Telstra also continues to make 5G site proposals.

TPG has added another 100 sites to its list of proposed sites. Although only 18 are showing up for this fortnight, many sites get delayed before they are published so that’s what accounts for the discrepancy.

NBN activated 5 sites and upgraded a further 10 with 12 more proposals for upgrade. This writer's fixed wireless NBN experience is deteriorating, I have rarely seen any speed above 30mb/s even at off-peak times and recently peek speeds have been dropping below 6mb/s. Aussie Broadband also removed my $11 discount without any notification, but given that I'm paying for 50mb/s, an $11 discount doesn’t even seem appropriate.

The low band 700mhz 4G gap between Optus and Telstra has decrease by 27 sites as Telstra ramps up. Optus is only ahead of Telstra in 4G700 by 799 sites.

Telstra, Vodafone get a boost from 5G spectrum auction decision

17 Jul 2018

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield had to deal with some interesting tensions last week when he set out the framework for the auction of key 5G spectrum scheduled for October.

The most critical was to ensure that there was enough of the 3.6GHz spectrum made available to the major mobile telecommunications players for each of them to have the option of creating a viable 5G network and contributing to a competitive 5G environment.

A secondary objective would have been to maximise the price of a scarce asset that could generate up to, if not more than, $1 billion for the government.